'Call of Duty: Black Ops' continues to set sales records

By Hector Cortez Dec 22, 2010, 3:26 GMT

More than 600 million hours have been logged playing Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Activision announced today that Call of Duty: Black Ops continues to set records, crossing the $1 billion mark in sales worldwide since its launch in November, according to internal estimates.

In its first five days alone, the game sold more than $650 million worldwide, outpacing theatrical box office, book and video game sales records for five-day worldwide sell through in dollars, according to internal estimates and Box Office Mojo. The game exceeded Activision's previous five-day worldwide record of $550 million set by last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

To date, more than 600 million hours have been logged playing Call of Duty: Black Ops since the game launched on November 9, 2010. According to Microsoft, the average player logs on more than once a day and plays for more than one hour each time. Over half of that time is spent playing online with and against friends.

"In all of entertainment, only Call of Duty and Avatar have ever achieved the billion dollar revenue milestone this quickly," said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. "This is a tribute to the global appeal of the Call of Duty franchise, the exceptional talent at Treyarch and the hundreds of extraordinary people across our many Call of Duty studios including Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer that work tirelessly on the franchise."

Kotick continued, "This extraordinary milestone was achieved because of the tens of millions of passionate Call of Duty players around the world. Global audiences have logged billions of hours online with Call of Duty games on Xbox LIVE, the Playstation Network and on personal computers."

Call of Duty: Black Ops is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows PC, Wii and DS.